Invested in CVS Health
#HealthInsurance
Does anyone specifically invest in health insurance stocks? Which ones do you invest in and why? Do you actually love your health insurance plan that much? Surprise Aetna is now part of CVS Health.
I have an indifferent/hate relationship w/ health insurances as a doctor. On the one hand I am reimbursed mainly via the insurance carrier and some from the patient. One thing I think gets lost w/ patients is that the doctors don’t set any of the rules or prices and basically just accepts what the health insurance plan or government sets. Both patients and doctors are pawns in this game and are typically the main ones who suffer by the rules set out by health insurance plans and government - just in my opinion. The most recent example is the addition of prior authorization process to medically necessary cataract surgery by Aetna. While cataract surgery is not emergent, the additional paperwork and administrative burden it creates is just wasted time and unnecessary cost. In 2020, Medicare already substantially cut reimbursement for cataract surgery … while year over year the cost to deliver care increases due to cost of living increases for staff and technology companies increasing prices. So this leaves doctors to either see more patients or take a pay cut but still perform the same amount of work. I’m not asking you to feel bad for the surgeon, but simply take a step back and look at it from a small business model - revenue arbitrarily decreased, cost to deliver care arbitrarily increased, and then this new deficit has to come from somewhere … so either see more patients along w/ increased staffing cost or pay cuts across the board to match.
Now to add insult to injury Aetna has decided to increase administrative costs and make it more time consuming to simply take care of patients in a timely and reasonable matter for cataract surgery. This creates an unsettling precedent. These changes while they seem little are going to have some serious consequences on forcing a number of doctors to prematurely retire adding to the shortage and then lead a number of doctors to sell to private equity. Then you will have a bunch of people at Goldman Sachs running your healthcare system … kind of like Goldmann Sachs owning My Eye Dr … ya that probably isn’t going to end well for patients.
https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/aetna-prior-authorization-policy-takes-effect-providers-protest
https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2019/06/03/goldman-sachs-buys-myeyedr-parent-for-2-7-billion.html
#FrustrationBuy #SorryVentingPSA
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Sorry to hear. I think the whole system is heading in the wrong direction. Personally, I've shifted more of my portfolio into hard assets to give a bit more insulation vs inflation & commercial banking.
@reiJayT It is ok. For me personally I will reach financial freedom probably around 40. I started practicing in private practice at 28 and I will retire when medicine stop being rewarding. While I love the patient relationship ... all the other stuff is putting a serious strain. I definitely see myself retiring prematurely but hope to be financial free to a point that it helps extend the longevity…See more
Exactly. Many patients do not understand that fees and reimbursements are tied to RBRVS and that carriers use this as a basis to pay. Frustrating to say the least.
@ctsshah my husband retired early because his job was no longer rewarding AND we wanted to live before we were to old to enjoy it like we envisioned. WE DID IT.
IF You’re not living , you’re dying.
Frustrating? Try a 300 dollar pee test at the pain clinic 🤦
@christineme632 Yup. I'm so busy seeing patients that I don't have the time to deal w/ political 💩 ... nor is politics why I spent so many years getting trained.
@DanaGeorge Congrats!! And yes this is front and center in my mind as I pursue financial freedom. It is super sad that this will only make the doctor shortage worse. I'm a cataract surgeon and get to restore people's vision. People are ex…See more
@DanaGeorge I think CVS is a great business to invest in. I just am frustrated w/ Aetna but I won't let that keep me from making money in the stock market 😂
It was just in the past year, it's covered under my insurance, but understandable with opioid therapy, it's insane that you have to deal with a lot of political BS as an opthalmologist, maybe that's why Rand Paul became a senator (also an opthalmologist)
🙄 He is a little eccentric at times ... even his neighbor is not a fan 😆. I think he started his own board certification process for reasons I never bothered looking up. But ya doctors are constantly in the cross hairs ... while insurance execs are killing it!
He's a good guy though- but of course given my name on here, I would be partial to him, liked his dad a lot better lol 😆
His dad was an OBGYN. There are a few doctors that transitioned to politics. I don't think I would be good at politics ... I'm very opinionated and probably a little to blunt and honest for politics
I am about to invest in Cigna $CI next week. I just switched to them, plus, it is a MagicFormula stock.
@ctsshah we deal with the same situation in pharmacy when it comes to PBMs and insurance
That's was Ron Paul's biggest problem, honesty and bluntness, but to this day, I take his financial advice to heart, particularly on crypto/precious metals still watch the liberty report regularly, but yeah his honesty got him largely ignored in the District of Criminals, the democrats did the same thing to Tulsi Gabbard, who was a good person and good leader, oh well...part of the reason I am tem…See more
@shantanukulkarni I think investing in health insurances is probably smart. It is an integral part of our healthcare systems. I kind of think of it like fossil fuels ... we need it to make the world go round at the moment but it is also creating a larger problem for us. It can't be fixed overnight and so we put up with it ... hopefully we can find a better version of our healthcare system in the fu…See more
@ShaunDJ you are jumping out of Public?! oh no 😭 ... i'm hoping it was autocorrect from politics
LL
My ? Is, would you invest in Aetna?
@lathandere It was a small amount in part to do the specific post. With that said, I do like CVS as a company ... I just don't care for Aetna at the moment. I got my COVID test there a couple weeks back and it was super simple and easy. They are building out the minute clinic which I think will be a huge source of revenue. They are making some aggressive plays in the healthcare space. I find myself…See more
I'll be on here to post, but literally ALL in crypto rn (especially ADA) and I'll be back on in a few weeks!
Sep 12th right around the corner, hopefully my cash on here settles quickly, need to find another dip in LTC too
@ctsshah yea I mean increasing costs to do business is common to a lot of industries, mine as well -legal. Regarding the insurance business model, what I don’t understand is doesn’t the cost of procedures covered by insurance go up as well and when it does the amount of reimbursement should go up.
@yantonov So reimbursement for cataract surgery went down 1/1/2020 for me. I now can do the same number of surgeries in the same year as the previous and make less. My expenses to deliver that care goes up. This then causes smaller practices such as mine to either see more patients and book more people with less time to cover the lost revenue ... you can only become so efficient.
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Morgan@morganmorgan
@ctsshah A solution around frustrating healthcare business is to outsource many of those services; authorizations being one of them. If you’re employing a company at a % of collections or even a flat rate agreement the added work is their problem, not yours. That also relieves employee stress internally and puts you in more control.
The system is challenging for all, but I think there’s opportunit…See more
Emma@emmaz
Thank you for sharing your perspective! How do you think the issues you mentioned could be fixed?
@morganmorgan Ya outsourcing and finding more efficient ways is happening and is a "solution" to a problem that I don't think needs to be there in the first place. As a small business owner within medicine it is hard not to get annoyed that the reimbursement pie is getting smaller as medicare reimbursement goes down and the cost of delivering care goes up as we are having to "outsource" more and mo…See more
@emmaz that is a landmine I'm not necessarily prepared to navigate here on Public fully. With that said, while I am conservative leaning ... as a doctor I would much rather see some form of a universal healthcare system that does not do away w/ private businesses. Top of my wishlist, would be to have a single electronic medical records system that is integrated nationally instead of this silly patc…See more
Emma@emmaz
Totally understand the landmine analogy, seems theres a lot beyond just policy which influences this issue. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, love hearing from the perspective of a doctor!
